If you’ve been working in AdWords every day, you’ve probably been impacted by several of the changes mentioned on this list. If you haven’t even heard of these changes, it’s probably a good thing you’re here.

Google Built a Tool to Help You Make Better Landing Pages

No, it’s not just another landing page tool.

This A/B testing tool integrates with Google’s own AdWords and Analytics platforms, allowing you to create and test landing pages tied to specific keywords, ad groups, conversion goals and campaigns.

Definitely worth a test for advertisers who can’t seem to get the relevancy score up on their ads.

Standard Text Ads Got Phased Out

This one didn’t come as a huge surprise, as Google is always trying to make improvements to the ad interface and user experience. Google announced Standard Text ads would still exist, but they were no longer editable after the 31st of January.

It was a pain for a lot of advertisers who hadn’t started using Expanded Text ads or the Responsive format, and had to learn how rather quickly.

But in the long run, Expanded Text Ads offer far more than a Text Ad–for instance, two headline fields and better mobile optimization.

Google Launched Similar Audiences for Search and Shopping

We were excited when similar audiences for Search and Shopping came out–it was yet another sign that Google’s been taking note of Facebook’s powerful audience targeting options (think: Lookalike audiences).

Rather than relying on retargeting old customers, AdWords advertisers could now widen their scope to reach new audiences that are still slightly targeted based on existing remarketing list members.

Google Introduced New Smart Display Campaigns

You provide the images and logos, Google offers the technology (automated bidding, automated targeting, automated ad creation) to make ads look great.

Smart Display ads can also blend into publisher’s websites as native ads, giving you impact that standard ads may not.

“According to Google, advertisers who use Smart display campaigns are seeing an average 20% increase in conversions at the same CPA, compared to their other display campaigns.”

Google Landed in Hot Water During the YouTube Ad Controversy

What do Starbucks, Verizon, and Lyft have in common?

They all jumped the YouTube ad ship when Google’s ad placements were highlighted next to offensive YouTuber’s materials.

While you may have forgotten about this already, Google hasn’t. Some reports estimate this headache cost them $750 million in boycotts.

The Google YouTube ad placement controversy highlighted the fact human oversight is still a very necessary part of advertising online. Google responded by tightening up restrictions, but there’s only so much they can do with 300 hours of YouTube videos being uploaded every day.

Google Quietly Rolled Out Automatic Item Updates

This was a relatively quiet update that confused a lot of advertisers.

In October, Google sent out two emails to their Google Shopping Merchants, both referencing something called “automatic item updates.”

Automatic item updates pull from structured data markup on your site to surface accurate prices and availability on the SERP if your Shopping feed doesn’t accurately match your website’s product data.

Advertisers could just let Google roll with the Automatic Updates, or turn it off. Either way, Google’s motive was simply to ensure that your website information matches your ads–a best practice in general.

The Merchant Center Got a Makeover

The product feed isn’t really exciting. In terms of advertising, optimizing your feed is like a trip to the dentist–you have to do it, but you’re not jumping for joy over it (unless you work at CPC, obviously).

So when Google introduced a new Merchant Center Feed experience that makes the whole feed uploading process easier–particularly for those who use feed plugins such as Shopify or Bigcommerce and don’t have much control over editing labels and promotion IDs–we were pretty happy.

This new process should allow for a greater ability to have more control over the important aspects of the feed that they didn’t previously.

Sounds good to us.

View Through Conversions Showed Up in Google Shopping

We’re not just advertisers, we’re also consumers–so we all know that no path to purchase is linear. We might bounce from our iPad to phone to desktop all in the span of one day, and encounter ads of all kinds along the way–many of which we don’t interact with, but that may influence our decisions to buy later.

Needless to say, it’s difficult to attribute credit to an ad type when it’s due. The new View Through Conversions column was introduced to tell you when a customer saw but didn’t interact with your ad, but then completed the purchase on your site later.

Google Phases Out Trusted Stores, Introduces Google Customer Reviews

Just after we’d gotten done explaining why Trusted Stores matters and how to become one, Google migrated to Customer Reviews.

Customer Reviews apply to seller ratings eligibility and appear on Search and Shopping. In addition, sellers have the option to put a Customer Reviews badge on their website.

Sellers didn’t necessarily have to do anything, as accounts were migrated over to the new Customer Reviews automatically.

But in general, these changes highlighted an increasing emphasis on the importance of reviews to drive a sale. As we mentioned in the post, good reviews can improve click-through-rates, decrease cost-per-clicks, assist in boosting conversion rates, and otherwise strengthen credibility with the public.

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